Having meals three times a day with my family. Hardly go out for diners nor buy frozen and processed food. Baking anything and everything, making pastas/Chinese steam buns etc. from scratch as much as I can. So as to quest for genuine, yummy and healthy food, I am cooking and cooking and cooking.
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Dec 28, 2009

Not sure this kind of noodle comes from China or not. We call it "Katayaki Soba". Katayaki means deep fried. Soba means noodles.

You can find it at any supermarkets in Japan. Not only noodles, but also the seasoning they have. Easy to cook!

I don't like MSG and this sort of chemical seasoning but as for this noodles, I like the tastes! It reminds me a Saturday lunch at home in my school days.

Though you might think I am too much conscious of organic and genuine food or a macrobioticcer or something like that, I just eat what I want to eat. Doesn't matter whether it should be organic or not.

This noodle is supposed to be the junk taste. That's it!

Instead, For Taro-san, I always put various vegetables into the sauce and simmer until enough soften so that Taro,who has only 8 teeth, can eat vegetables a lot!

This is also a good chance to clean up all stale vegetables in the fridge!! :-P

I always bake breads from scratch. Before I used to use a natural yeast called "Hoshino Tennen Kobo", however, the yeast can keep for only 2 weeks in the fridge. It has become an obsession with me. They push me a lot to bake something and I got tired of it. :-(

So recently I prefer to use instant dried yeast, only 1/4 tablespoons for 300g flours. Very few. that's the key of baking yummy bread. The bread using few yeast keeps longer than others and never smells something chemical of yeast.

I hardly put oil, butter, milk and eggs into the dough.

I want to taste the flour by itself . Enough kneading makes it soften.

Re-heat the muffins. Served with "CALPIS" non added salt butter and honey.

A friend of mine will leave for Hiroshima next week. Had a farewell party at my place.

Made 2 pastas from scratch!

One is " Stracci" with Spinach and Mushroom Cream .Stracci means rag in Italian. The shape is like a lozenge. Not only flour but also potatos in it. Without a pasta machine, you can make it. (A rolling pin is required to make it though.)

The taste is similar to "gnocchi" but the texture is more pasta.

Even if you don't have a chance to make fresh pasta from scratch, this cream sauce is matching with any dried pasta.

Here's the recipe of the sauce. Using a food processor will help you to make it easily.

~Mushroom and Spinach Cream Sauce Recipe~

Ingredients

A half bunch of spinach (100g)

1 /2 pack of "Maitake" (any mushroom you like would be fine.)

1 garlic clove

5 table spoons of unsalted butter( around 60g) ( if you want to taste more healthy, you may use olive oil instead.)

1 pack of fresh cream (200cc)

Sea salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

Grated Parmesan cheese as you need

Method

1 Cut two vegetables and crush a garlic. no need to chop them.

2 Heat butter in a fried pan. Add a garlic and sauté until beginning to soften. Add spinach and mashrooms and fried until soften.

3 Take the garlic out. Put spinach and mashrooms into a food processor. Add some salt(around 1/2 tablespoon) and pepper. Mince them.

You can keep the sauce into a freezer. It can keep the taste around 1 month. Matching with short pasta.

The other one is called "Strangozzi" which is made from egg white and flour. When I make some sweets such as a "mousse", lots of egg white are left. I always keep them into a freezer. One of the solutions of consuming egg whites, I used to make a baked cake before, however, the calories are horrible. For our family's health, I am making "strangozzi". 4 eggs whites and 320g flours(Italian 00 flour) are for 4 persons.

We usually have breads for breakfast, but sometimes my husband requests white rice!(he doesn't like brown rice so much. Neither does Taro. I love it though.) He's got fed up with breads recently since I am baking too much!

Today's menu:

Roasted Salmon called "Kasu-duke".

Steamed Pumpkins

Turnip Pickles

Umeboshi

White rice with water dropworts ,"Seri" and deep fried bean curd called "Aburaage".

Miso soup with Taro.

Seri is one of Japanese herbs tasted like watercress. The smell is beautiful.

Taro and Jun like this sort of meals very much. They are typical Japanese!

In regard to Miso-soup, I always make soup stock from "Niboshi" which are small dried fish. Once you make it from Niboshi, you will not use instant soup stock any more. This is the genuine Miso-soup and we will never get tired of the taste.

Dec 24, 2009

Once a week, "Radish Boya" which is the organic food delivery service distributes various seasonable vegetables they choose to my place. It depends on the harvest, living area and climate, so we have no choice to select them. Though it might be inconvenient, for me, this is a challenging to make new recipes and great opportunities to meet new and rare vegetables.

Recently, somehow cabbages come quite often to my place. It causes me some trouble. Cannot come up with something new recipe on cabbages! How many cabbage recipes do you have? Can't you consume one big cabbage for a week?

Ragu sauce is the answer.

The good point of ragu sause is that I can consume loads of vegetables. In this case, aside from tomatos, one onion, one celery and a half of carrot,I used one whole cabbage!

Yes, I used one whole cabbage in the sauce. It worked out!

In regard to meat, I used 200g minced beef and pork only. I never use soup cubes. Believe the power of vegetables!

As for the pasta, I made them from scratch.

When I usually make them, I get them into the freezer in case whenever we want to eat . It helps me a lot, especially I don't have enough time to cook. Usually when you boil spaghetti, it takes around 10 minutes, whereas frozen fresh pasta, it takes only 3minutes!

If you have a pasta machine, I strongly recommend to make it from scratch. It will be your special fast food, plus no need to be bother about "al dente" ! :-P

Dec 23, 2009

Usually, early-bird Taro wakes us up but when it comes to a holiday, he doesn't wake up early somehow... Why?

For brunch, I made pancakes. This is very nice! Especially when adding rhubarb jam, it will be more lovely taste. I love the colour of rhubarb. In Japan, they are so expensive that I cannot afford to buy them. But luckily, the shop "Kinokuniya" sells them with low price some time when they get old.

This rhubarb is made in Holand. one package is 198yen. But proper price was more than double. Perhaps 598yen or something. I often go to patrol at the store to check the rhubarb.Yes, rhubarb patrol! This is one of my routine works. :-PLOVE RHUBARB.

Dec 21, 2009

When winter has come, I want to eat seasonable vegetables such as raddish, lotus and burdock. These are very typical Japanese vegetable. Usually people would use these stuff to make "Tonjiru” which is the one kind of Miso soup. But I would like to make something new.Thus I made root vegetables curry and brown rice.When I make Japanese style curry, I always prepare for brown rice. Somehow these are matching very much. Both root veggies and brown rice have loads of fibre. When you feels constipation, this meal will surely help you :-P

Ingredients:Roots vegetables(radish, lotus, burdock, taro, carrot etc.)Chicken thigh (Pork would be fine as well.)Dashi(Japanese soup stock which is made from Katsuo(bonito) and seaweed.)Curry paste (Japanese made. sweet one would be suitable for this curry)

-If you have "Liver paste", you can add 2~3 table spoons in the soup. Then the taste would become more thick and rich.Next time, I will tell you how to make yummy liver paste!

Before starting my blog, I am going to show you my kitchen.Most of the time, I spent here and focus on cooking everyday.You may be surprised when you know my all meals are created in the such a shabby and small kitchen. Probably my kitchen space is only 16 square meter or something.Yes, it's too small and very inconvenient, however, in a sense, this is a very compact kitchen. No need to move a lot:-POf course, I wish I could have new and bigger kitchen in the future but so far I am managing to cook in there and loving my kitchen anyway.

This blog is for recording our daily meals and practising my English writing.When you find some mistakes I made, please feel free to correct them. I will revise them as soon as possible!

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About Me

Living in TOKYO.
Questing for tiny happiness such as making rhubarb jam, fascinated the colour of it, spreading the jam on the bread I've just baked, and sharing the joy with my family with hot gingered milk tea.....
Piling up these sort of things more, our family tie is getting closer..... That's my life!
This blog is for recording our daily meals and practicing my English writing. If you read the post and found some mistakes I made, please feel free to correct them. Thanks!